The owners of Kelowna's newest restaurant used a little star power Saturday night to open their business.

Actress, model, Playboy centrefold, author and animal rights activist Pamela Anderson was in Kelowna Saturday to promote her latest book, Raw, and she made an appearance at the opening of The Xchange Tapas Bar and Grill in Dickson Road.

Earlier in the day in the city, she promoted the book, which is described as a fly-on-the-wall look at her life over the last decade and features photos of her along with poetry and prose she wrote for it.

Anderson, who hails from Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, shot to fame in the late 1980s when she was spotted on the large video screen at a B.C. Lions game at B.C. Place Stadium. From there she went on to model, posed several times for Playboy and landed a part on the hit television series Baywatch, appeared on other shows and on reality television programs and wrote books. She is also well-known for her personal life, her on-again, off-again relationship with Motley Crew drummer Tommy Lee, to whom she was married and for her short-lived marriage to another rocker Kid Rock.

Arriving at the restaurant in Kelowna Saturday in a grey and black Lamborghini, and wearing a long, plain, form-fitting short-sleeved dress in her trademark colour white, Anderson was ushered in stopped along the way to pose for photos with several people in the crowd, many of whom showed up to get a glimpse at the actress.